


Doomed Timelines: Red

by leelynnresika95



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Sadstuck, i guess, i guess?, kinda disturbing because of the deaths, might write one for each kid, this was written for a class
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-13
Updated: 2013-03-13
Packaged: 2017-12-05 04:24:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/718851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leelynnresika95/pseuds/leelynnresika95
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave and his thoughts on doomed timelines and the color red.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doomed Timelines: Red

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a random piece i wrote for a class, I'm tempted to write one about their colors for every kid, but I'm not sure. Anyways, this is what I've been doing instead of updating my other fics..... Comments are appreciated!

Red. 

The color blinds me. 

It’s all I can see, and that’s saying a lot, considering the shades I wear 24/7. 

All that my mind can imagine is that repeating color, like a broken record. It haunts my thoughts, my rest. Not that I could sleep before. 

It’s used for many aspects of my life, but it’s becoming a numbing color. 

Numb. Yes, that’s what red brings.

Red is everywhere. At a young age, it looked back at me from every reflective surface. My brother, my guardian, role model, stopped it for a while. Triangular, dark shades. Ironic anime Kamina shades. I actually used to think they were so cool. The smooth surface mimicked Bro’s own, and reflections stopped being a source of worry. Red was still there, underneath, but no more obvious.

Red didn’t follow my gaze anymore; it didn’t stop people in their tracks. No more trains braking for the freak show.

The shades alienated me.

I withdrew, and began finding other things to occupy my time. I hit up the great and powerful Internet, and found three other colors after a while. 

A goofy, slightly rude blue, an excitable green, and a sly, thoughtful purple to coincide with my insufferable red. 

I forgot to be ashamed, to worry. The red drifted away. Bro’s glasses were replaced with a gift from the boy of blue. Aviators. My favorite item now; I wear them all the time, like they’re super-glued to my face. 

The red color stayed concealed, thanks to my friend.

But now it has come back. And it’s everywhere. In my eyes, on my clothes, my friends, my family. And myself.

The first time red came back, it was in my room. I recognized the figure on my floor. I mean, I saw him in the mirror every day. But this time, he was all red. Red had claimed him, like a clingy, over obsessive girlfriend. Except, at the time, I found no humor in seeing myself…Well, dead. And in that manner, too. 

The red suit helped to hide the red that my body had spilt, but it was all the same. It shocked me to the core. 

Here I was, only 13 years of age, stuck in a virtual game that had thrown me from reality, and I’m faced with staring at my own body. Death is literally staring me in the face. And I’m staring back. At the wide, glazed over red eyes, the pale skin, devoid of any blood left. I’m just a kid. Confronting the possibility of having died at some point; that’s indescribable. 

I should have known. Timelines are a messy thing. You don’t test the limits with that. The consequences, as I came to unfortunately find out, were horrible, yet sadly predictable. Especially in the game. 

I wondered what made this one, this timeline, go wrong. What made one of my timelines doomed? 

I ended up shoving the body out of the window to shield the happy green girl, my friend, from the horror. She needed to stay happy in this game.

After a while, it becomes a sad constant. One sidetrack or splinter off of the right path, and it resulted in another tragically ended timeline, another me colored in red.

A red line across the neck, a number of red holes from a placement gone wrong.

Then I saw red on my friends. They too had to see the destructive color. Red on the blue boy’s chest, red on the purple girl’s back. And red on everyone’s hands. 

Red followed our families, too. Blue’s dad, purple’s mom. Red. Bro was painted a bright red by his own katana. 

Red.

All for the sake of winning this unwinnable game.

Red.

Every time I saw more red, I hurt less, I was disturbed less, and I cared less. I stopped being so experimental. I become more of a coward. Everything I try to do end up with that stupid color. I can’t stop it. After a while, you lose yourself. 

“I’m not a hero,” I say, mainly to myself, and to Terezi. 

“Bro was.”

“John is.”

“I’m not.”

It repeats like a mantra in my head, over and over.

My friends disagree, and maybe they’re right. 

“You are a hero, Dave. You are.” Maybe in the future, I am. But right now, there’s no doubt in my mind that that time is not now, nor is it any time soon.

\--

In the distant future, I don’t know when, there’s a young boy.

He lives alone in the middle of the sea, one of the last humans.

His brother was a cool guy, who made amazing and implausible films, wore aviators, who wasn’t afraid of red anymore, and had died trying to save the world.

If I could see what the future held, and the pride that he felt to be related to me, I would’ve thought better of myself.

Because I was a hero.

And red is just another color.


End file.
